


Questions

by kikibug13



Category: Les Misérables (Dallas 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 00:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8869222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: Javert fell, but he did not lose his life - only his memories... his self. What can be done about that?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss M (missm)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/gifts).



Valjean barely saw where he was going as he made his way back to his hut at the rue Plumet, his eyes kept misting up with tears. This was better for Cosette, he told himself, and believed it, but - barely had a thing in his life hurt so much. 

This life, at least. 

Valjean shook his head, and tried not to think that the one thing he had noticed on the street had been what seemed to him an unmarked police car. It did not matter. He was only here until he could arrange to return to the convent, and surely nobody would disturb him there. 

He took a shaking breath, looking at his hand, trying to force it to start putting away what of his life was still here. The hand that Marius had refused to shake, a deserved reaction to what he had revealed. A rejection that still made it difficult for him to breathe. At least the man who would take care of his daughter would not consider crime as permissible. At least the man (the boy, he could not think of him otherwise easily, but he tried) would be the moral weight that would keep the worst of the world away from her. At least--

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Valjean's eyes cleared, and he tensed. 

He could not well recall a time when there had been a knock on this door, not like this.

"Monsieur? We know you're inside, we saw you go in. Please open the door."

Now he eyed the trapdoor to his secret passage out, but...

That was not Javert. It was police, but it was not Javert, and that confused him enough for his curiosity to speak up. He had nobody nor anything to lose, now. So why not at least find out what this was about? (He had surrendered to the Law already, that night at the barricade. Why be afraid to face up to it now, other than long years of habit?)

He pulled himself together, and opened the door. The familiar uniforms faced him, black visors drawn down over faces. 

"We are sorry to disturb you, but your address was brought in during a rather peculiar set of circumstances, and we are putting together the events that led to those."

Valjean licked his lips, and then nodded. "Of course. How can I help you, officers?" 

"Do you know Javert, Inspector with the city police?" 

Valjean knew himself well enough to be aware that they would not have missed his twitch. "I do. I... he and I had an appointment, but, after becoming aware that a young... relative had become hurt, he failed to appear, and I admit I was rather preoccupied with the recovery to seek him out."

Not that he would have sought him out. But this was the police he was talking to. He could not say anything of the sort. 

"We are sorry." They did not sound particularly sorry this time around saying it either, but that was hardly unexpected. "Inspector Javert fell from a bridge onto highway traffic. We are investigating foul play. The Inspector... has not recovered any recollections."

The other masked man added, "not even his own memory."

Valjean stared for a moment, his eyes wide and, despite himself, worried. "I... is he properly cared for?" 

He had rarely had touch with the proper medical system, since he was hale and Cosette was, despite what the Thenardiers had written to her mother, of very good constitution, but the last weeks he had gotten to appreciate some of the subtleties of how men could be treated - or not. So he had to ask. 

"You will come with us to answer some questions."

Valjean knew that he should not do what he did next. He definitely knew he should not, but still, he straightened, drawing up on his National Guard training as he rarely did. "I would certainly be glad to, officers, provided you allow me to see him, after."

"You are in no position to put conditions, citizen."

"As a soldier in this country's army, I believe that I might be able to."

"You are in the army?" 

Without missing a beat, Valjean clipped through his name and rank and division, as he'd practiced with so many recruits. For the next few seconds, he could only hear very low murmurs, almost sub-vocalization, clearly the two of them communicating between themselves, or maybe with their handler, before they turned to him once more. 

"Come with us."

"I need to bring my identification with me."

Pause. "Do that."

The next few hours were rather grueling. Valjean had strictly avoided spending any kind of time within police precincts since Montreuil-sur-Mer, and being on the receiving end of a questioning brought far too many memories that he did not at all care for. But they established, in the end, that he could not have pushed him from the bridge, since he had been - and there were witnesses to that, even only his daughter, and then the medic who had cared for Marius - in a different part of the city. (Thinking of Cosette and Marius, of course, was difficult on its own, and he was afraid to consider what his carefully laid out plans would come to if the police did go to seek Cosette out to corroborate his story, but there was no way to get out of the present situation otherwise, so he swallowed all his concerns down.) 

And then, at long last, they did get him to the hospital where Javert was being kept. 

Jean Valjean had few - none, really - reasons to bear fondness for the Inspector who had hounded him through so many years. But the man lying in that hospital cot - one too short for his long frame, too - would have evoked the pity in far more hardened hearts than Valjean's. The usually neat hair and beard were overgrown and matted. The sharp blue eyes were unfocused and... apathetic, Valjean thought. 

The hunter, the hound, the spirit and mind that brought life to that slender body, they seemed... gone. As though his will was broken. 

As police and medics filed into his room, Javert tracked their motion without any particular interest, the mechanic reaction to motion in front of his sight.

Then Valjean stepped into the room, and there was a spark of recognition in his gaze. By the sharp intake of breath of the nurse, and the exchanged looks between her and the doctor, Valjean could guess it was the first recognition in weeks. The police officers in the room tensed, hands going to their weapons, ready to arrest Valjean if all their questioning and evidence were proved wrong by the victim, but Javert...

Javert smiled. 

That chilled Valjean more than anything in his long, eventful life. 

"I think I wanted to tell you something."

Silence. Then the smile faded a little, and the blond hair snagged against the pillow when he tilted his head. "What is your name?" 

The police officers relaxed, and the doctor made a disappointed moue, but Valjean. Valjean thought about his daughter, and the face he knew she was already wearing because of him, thought of his son - of sorts, his disappointed, unhappy son. Thought of the convent. 

And stepped forward, sitting by the bedside to answer the question. 

Javert should not be his responsibility. Yet Valjean had, a long time ago, given up the possibility of not answering a soul in need. 

*** 

It was not a very fast process. At first, it took Valjean a long time to make sure that at least some of his time with Javert without other people present. He would time it so that the doctors' and nurses' visits would come only at the edges of his time there, too.

But, if Javert remembered some things about him, perhaps other things would help jostle more memories. It was worth a try. 

In order to be able to do that, however, he needed to not be arrested. The privacy was of utmost importance. If ... when, Valjean thought. When Javert recovered enough to decide he needed to be returned into the system, he would go. But not before his work was done. 

The work seemed rather hopeless and infinite, anyway. Valjean started with relating stories about situations that they both had known from Montreuil-sur-Mer, then, rarely, ventured further back in time, to the prison. That was difficult and awkward, but maybe if it was something that Javert strongly about, that would help.

Nothing worked, as far as Valjean could tell. 

And yet, there was one afternoon when Javert finished his usual questions about the story and then squinted at Valjean. Javert was by now sitting up in his bed, and Valjean was relatively uncomfortable (though acceptably so) in the chair nearby.

"Valjean?" That made the older man sit up, startled. In the weeks since he had been coming here, not once had Javert called him by that name, not in this tone. "What are you doing wasting your time with me? Go home to your daughter."

Ah. 

So the wolfhound had not been lost in the fall, after all. Not judging by the way the dry words had torn Valjean's heart through, and he could feel the bleeding shards falling on the floor. 

"I think," he managed to choke out, "that my daughter and her betrothed have much better things to do than spend their time on a criminal, Inspector."

Javert glared at him, then blinked, his eyes growing more confused once again. "Inspector? I don't think you're the first person to call me so. I don't recall being an Inspector, though. That is police, is it not?" 

What was left of Valjean's heart bled again, but at least he had gotten used to handling this. 

"Yes, and even if you do not recall being one, you were a very skilled Inspector, my friend." It had turned out that the least problematic way he could address Javert was just that, 'my friend,' so he stuck with it. Some days, he even believed it, a little. "But we can think of that later."

Right now, he was trying to decide what feeling hope for the return of Javert's memory, with even more time, meant. And whether he should tell anyone. 

A few weeks further, and the little starts of memory had become more frequent. Javert was well enough and, most of the time, _himself_ enough to go on his own walks, on the mornings when Valjean was not with him. When Valjean did show up one of those afternoon, he took the heavy frown as another time when Javert remembered all of their past, and was planning on putting him behind bars. 

Instead, when Javert spoke, the clipped, sharp words were again entirely unexpected. 

"You told your daughter that you left for overseas. Alone and without her."

Valjean dropped the book he had been meaning to read to Javert from. 

"I..."

"You _told the child_ that you beat me because of that you were gone. And you told me that she had better things to think of than a criminal."

"Please, Inspector. Don't yell so l--" Valjean considered what he had been about to say, then shook his head. "Apologies. Pray continue. I was aware that the day would come that you would return me to where you have always believed I belong."

That gave the taller man pause, and the blue eyes squinted at Valjean, hard. 

"You knew I was not going to come take you back to jail when you lied to her." Startled, Valjean frowned a little. "You knew. That had nothing to do with me."

"It did not, Inspector. It had everything to do with somebody pure and somebody filthy with his past, and letting her out of my protective hold when she did not need it anymore."

"And she had no say in the matter."

"How do you know all that?" _Why do you care?_

"She ran into me in the street, Valjean. Just outside the park, in fact, and a park, I gathered, where you had taken her to walks regularly for a while. If you think all you meant for her was protection, you are more of a fool than I have ever believed you to be since my suspicions began forming in Montreuil."

Helpless, Valjean had to blindly grope for the back of the chair before lowering himself into it. 

"You saw her? Is she well?" 

"She is healthy but crestfallen, angry at you, and lied to."

"I did not lie to her." At the pointed look, Valjean had to turn his eyes away. His sight was going odd, anyway, his heart beating way too fast. "I asked Marius to tell her I had left, I could not lie to her in her face."

"So you made the boy do it."

"She was not going to find me if she looked."

"She can find you if she looks."

"You could find me if you looked, Cosette is not--" 

"A child. She is your daughter and she has lived with you for nearly a decade, Valjean. If you think she has not learned from you, you are very much mistaken."

"Do you imply that you approve of what I have taught you, Javert?" 

"Cease changing the topic! Better yet, go and talk to your daughter." 

Valjean flinched back, then, very slowly, raised his eyes to meet Javert's familiarly sharp eyes. "I cannot." 

"Why?" 

"Marius would not even shake my hand after I told him why I was leaving. He was right. You have always been right. I am a beast that needs to be caged until I die."

"You are nothing of the sort!" The vehemence of the words made both men pause, and blink. Valjean at Javert. Javert at ... himself, it seemed like. 

"Excuse me."

And with precise police footwork, Javert did a round-about and left his own room.

Valjean was left staring at the door, before he packed his things and went home. 

***

He did not return to the hospital on the next day, instead doing his best to clear out his belongings from the small room he had rented and to settle his accounts. Javert was well enough now to leave alone, though that thought pained Valjean far too much for him to understand. He would either return to arresting Valjean, or would leave him alone. And Valjean would return to his original plan upon leaving Cosette. Though it would be harder. His soul was still resonating with the sound of Javert's words returning to his own, instead of helplessly weary only, as it had been those months ago. 

The streets were decked festively as he made his way to the fireless room for one last night there. He would return to the Convent, after. 

To his utter shock, the door to his room was open, and there was the sound of voices inside. Valjean stood near the wall, out of sight, and listened, tears falling from his eyes as he recognized each of the voices there. Then there was silence, just as he was about to turn away and leave them. 

"He is here."

Javert's long arm reached and caught his elbow. Valjean could break free, they both knew that, but he would not, not when the familiar bespectacled face peered around Javert, dark eyes widening with startlement, disbelief, and--

He could not identify what else, because Cosette threw herself in his arms, and he could not let her go. He buried his face in her hair, and sobbed silently for a long, long moment. 

When he looked up, Javert had stepped back - Valjean had not even felt when he'd released his arm - and in his place stood the much shorter Marius, dark curls and brown eyes in an expression entirely different from the last he had seen on him. Marius reached for his hand, and pressed a kiss to the back of it. 

"I know," Marius choked out. "I know what you did. Please forgive this ungrateful man, Monsieur. Please."

Cosette wrapped her arms around his neck once again before he could find words to respond to that. 

"Merry Christmas, Papa. Welcome home."

He had all the objections to make to that. And could make not one of them.


End file.
